Very cute!
Ever Wonder Where to Post Your Update?
Nov 3rd, 2011 by admin
Google Doodle: The Halloween special
Oct 31st, 2011 by Arvin
Google always has come up with some of the wackiest, coolest, and, truth be told, relevant Google Doodles in its homepage–a temporary reinvention of the famous Google typeface into different caricatures and forms. Halloween is one of those holidays that Google has never failed to make a Halloween Google Doodle for since 1991. For more than a decade, Google has given us Google Doodles that satisfied our Halloween craving.
This year though, Google decided to take the Halloween spirit a bit further with its Google Halloween Doodle 2011. Behind this year’s Doodle is a roughly 5-minute video featuring the Doodle artists hard at work on six gigantic pumpkins for what is easily the biggest Halloween Google Doodle.
Here’s a statement from the Google blog itself:
To celebrate Halloween this year, the doodle team wanted to capture that fascinating transformation that takes place when carving a pumpkin. Instead of picking up a few pumpkins from the grocery store, however, we decided to work on six giant pumpkins, specially delivered from nearby Half Moon Bay (some weighing well over 1,000 pounds). What you see is a timelapse video of the approximately eight hours we spent carving in the middle of our Mountain View, Calif. campus.
Google has again managed to stay on top of the web news with this one. Whether you’re an online business or just an online shopper, the question remains: what’s your online gimmick for the Halloween?
Simplifying Social Media for Small Businesses
Oct 28th, 2011 by JoanneD
Social media can do a lot for small businesses.
It is a cost-effective way to reach a wider audience and present new ways of interacting with clients, suppliers and investors.
While it takes initial investments to begin social media campaigns, one of the biggest issues that companies have is to sustain or increase momentum. Here are a few simple tricks to help establish your marketing and social media campaigns with the many other social media outlets, blogs and websites competing for attention.
Set goals and objectives
While all businesses have strategies to help them grow their business, social media plans seem to be done on an ad-hoc basis. However, like having a clear business plan for social media (other tied with other marketing plans) will help to align with other company goals and objectives. There should be a very strong and clear vision that should be adhered to on a consistent basis.
Reuse marketing material
Social media content can often reuse the same old marketing campaigns, projects, website information, catalogues and other marketing material. There is often no need to start a social media campaign from scratch. Most of the current marketing material should still be relevant and if it ain’t broke, there is no need to fix it.
Create timelines
Because of the micro-scale actions required of social media projects, often there will need be some some kind of timeline, calendar or deadlines required to keep track of social media projects. This will ensure that posts and information will be consistent in terms of timing and relevance. For example, blog postings should be posted at a similar time each day or week.
These timelines may change due to circumstances, and these changes should be visible to everyone contributing to the project.
Set responsibilities
There should be people who should take ownership of certain social media responsibilities. While larger organizations may have a designated social media coordinator or marketing manager, smaller organizations can divide up the tasks according. For example, a staff member who is passionate about a certain topic can be given responsibility for a certain campaign or a guest post regarding that topic.
What Happens when Twitter is Down
Oct 21st, 2011 by JoanneD
What happens when Twitter is done. Image Credit: Geek and Poke.
See more social media funnies at Geek and Poke.
Social Media Makes UP $50 Billion of Australian GDP
Oct 13th, 2011 by JoanneD
According to research by Deloitte Access Economics, the firm which sets the benchmark for economic analysis and insight in Australia, has reported that the Internet industry in Australia makes up $50 billion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Obviously, this is a huge amount and equates to roughly the same size as the Australian retail sector.
While so many retailers now going online to increase market shares, there is a steady stream of E-Commerce website development, social media and online marketing to facilitate growth.
This internet marketing growth has been attributed to advances in technology, the struggle to maintain market share and further expand businesses. Many businesses around the world are now re-adapting their business models to take advantage of online growth.
Australia has 10.6 million users on Facebook and almost all large companies are incorporating social media marketing strategies to growth client bases, improve interaction with their customers and to get their name out there.
One of Australia’s largest retailers, Woolworths has stated that 1% of the sales already comes from online purposes and they are expanding into new mobile technologies and apps in the near future.
While there has not been a comprehensive study in social media and internet and its effect on the GDP in other countries, this has definitely the case in most westernized countries.
While online retailing and marketing bring in such a huge part of the GDP, doesn’t it make sense to establish some social media practices for your own business?
Remembering Steve Jobs
Oct 6th, 2011 by JoanneD
Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman of the board, former CEO of Apple and industry icon for decades, has died yesterday. Apple released this statement:
“We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.
Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.
His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.”
Technology and social media users from all over the world are saddened by the loss and the front page of Apple.com has a tribute to their late leader who is no doubt influential in changing the very nature of the industry.
Steve Jobs stepped down from his role as CEO of Apple in August due to health related issues and issued the following statement:
“I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
“I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”
For those who wish to pay tribute to Mr. Jobs, you can send your sympathies to rememberingsteve@apple.com.
10 Top Ten Social Media Jobs in the US
Sep 29th, 2011 by JoanneD
Just a few days ago, American job search site CareerBless has listed their top 10 social media jobs in the US complete with the number of openings and the average salary.
While the words “social media” tends to give the perception that it is all fun and games, Matt Miller, the CTO and co-founder of CareerBliss notes that “Social media jobs do not just mean someone sitting and posting on Facebook. Careers in this field are an integral part of a company’s overall communication and web presence plan, as many search engines now consider social media interactions as part of their rankings.” Social media is a large piece of the marketing pie for larger companies and it is likely that the number of social media job openings will increase in the future.
It should also be noted that based on the figures below that there is a wide range of job types and salaries in social media, ranging from low end entry level jobs to salaries similar to high end business sales managers. These jobs may require much more than your average knowledge of Facebook and Twitter, they require a high degree of business savvy.
Social Media Data. Image Source: Career Bliss.
CareerBliss collected its data from job opening listings under the social media category for 2011 and derived the average salaries from salaries listings per job category from 2010 to 2011. There were more than 21,000 listings analyzed.
Looking for Work? Social Media Can Improve Your Chances
Sep 22nd, 2011 by JoanneD
Scoping out potential employee. Image Credit: Tutorials.com
When looking for work, keep in mind that whatever you have on the internet can be seen by headhunters and human resource professionals. You know you should keep certain information private and know that your rowdy Facebook photos could veto you as potential candidate. A recent study shows that almost 90% of companies will use social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for screen potential applications and that almost 80% will take the applicant’s online presence and behaviour into account before making a final decision. Here a few suggestions to help increase your social profile to effectively put your best online foot forward:
- Clean up Your Profile – This means that you should only portray yourself in a professional manner. So if you wouldn’t want your mother to see something, you should not put it out there on the internet. For those who like to put party pictures on their Facebook profile, it may be a wise decision to create a new one for professional purposes that is separated from your personal life. But keep in mind that anything which has been set free in cyberspace, including posts and tweets could make its way back to you.
- Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn are great ways of advertising yourself. The trick is to market yourself to as many recruiters as possible and you can do that by casting a wider net by creating profiles on my separate platforms where you will have a higher chance of finding a potential job match. The fact that you know how to use these different social media tools already demonstrates that you are computer literate, able to keep with new technologies and knows how to differentiate yourself form the crowd.
- Be specific in your language within these profiles. If you want employment with a marketing company or want a particular job title, you should market yourself this way and use as many key words as possible to help recruiters find you.
- Interact with who you wish to work for – This means that you should get connected with the company or organization you wish to work for. Sign up for their email updates and twitter accounts and “like” them on Facebook. Showing that you like the company and are interested about them even without being hired by them shows initiatives. It also allows you to update yourself with the company news. This will allow you to find out about company culture, news and you may even be the first to know about possible vacancies!
Your online presence says alot about you and the old saying of “you only get one chance to make a first impression” also applies to your internet persona.
Americans Spent 25% of their Online Time on Social Networking Sites
Sep 15th, 2011 by JoanneD
Blogger Logo. Image Credit: Blogger.
According to Nielson, an international marketing research company, which a division specializing in consumer-generated media measurement and analysis solutions, has found that Americans spent a quarter of their online time on social networking sites.
The report combines data from Nielson mobile and online meters, buzzword data and survey has found that people spent more than two times as much time of these networks (including blogs) as the next most popular online arena such as games.
According to the report, the most frequented social media sites includes Facebook, Blogger, Tumblr, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The report also showed that women were more likely to use social media sites than men, with the exception of LinkedIn. Women are also more likely to watch online videos, whereas men have more patience to watch longer videos.
Mobile applications are also allowing for more ways for people to be connected via social media and the report has found this is one of the main reasons why social media use is so widespread.
But what does this mean for your business? Essentially, with social media taking up such a huge portion of online time, this means that social media campaigns should be taken more seriously than they currently are. They are a force to be reckoned with, since so many people are spending leisure time, off time and sometimes work time browsing through social media.
The advantage of social media is that it alllows people to connect products and services without even realizing it. The study states that social networks and blogs reach almost 80 percent of active American internet users and this is a huge chunk of your potential audience.
The report breaks down the demographic structure of your typical social media user and is a great way of showcasing who uses this technology. It is a great way to target your audience.
User Ratings
Sep 8th, 2011 by JoanneD
